Work Cafe, a great concept

Work Cafe by Santander Banco

Today I took a walk down Calle Larios to the Santander Bank Work Cafe. The Christmas lights are still up (but not on) in Larios and as the sun shone on them, the most amazing shadows were cast. It was quite beautiful.

Work Cafe

The Work Cafe is a great concept. It is like an informal co-working space with a cafe, desk areas, meeting rooms and also comfortable seating for chilling out. Anyone can visit and use the space and as far as I know you do not need to be a member of Santander Bank. However, if you are a Santander Bank member and when you pay using your bank card at the cafe you get a 30% discount on your purchases. Seems like a good deal to me!

 

Working on my blog 

I'm currently working on my blog and also on the PIGSY website in the Santander Work Cafe and I can tell you it is an awesome setting. I highly recommend!

For me, working in spaces like these (even in Starbucks) makes me focus more than when working at home. I also like these spaces because they can help make a division between home and work. The other reason that I enjoy working here is that the insulation is really bad in my apartment and so on cold days it is really cold. Last Wednesday it was raining heavily and very cold.......but it was lovely warm and comfortable doing my work here in the Santander Work Cafe!!

Congratulations USA - a new day has dawned

20th January 2021: The Inauguration of President Biden and Vice-President Harris

Yesterday was a day I had been waiting for a long time......since 4 years ago when Hilary Clinton was defeated. At that time, as the election results started to come in it was time for bed in Ireland due to the time difference. Just before going to sleep, I turned to my husband and said that we would be waking up in a New World where a woman would be President of the USA. My husband said back to me, something like "Enid, you need to prepare yourself, you are going to be disappointed. He is going to beat Clinton". I told him I thought he was very wrong and went to sleep content and safe in the knowledge that the next President of the USA would be Hilary Clinton.

Well we all know what happened next.

But now it is a new day!!

And yesterday President Biden and Vice-President Harris were sworn in.

Thank you America, I am so very proud of all of my friends who voted for this good man and lady who will lead the USA onwards and upwards.  

The world starts to heal from today. 

It's stopped raining!!!

Hello Sunshine!

While there was record snowfalls up in Madrid there a deluge of rain here in Malaga. I guess we can blame Global Warming which is bringing about massive climate change. However, after 7 days of heavy heavy rain the sunshine came back yesterday. Along with the heavy rain we had low temperatures which pushed us to order a heater from Amazon and then while we were waiting for it to arrive we went and bought a small one from Carrefour. Along with this two hot water bottles were called in to action. Yes it was that cold!

But that's all changed now and for the next 10 days or so we will have sun with a temperature of 14 degrees today going up to 18 degrees over the next week.  I will gladly take it!!

Yesterday when the rain broke we got out for a walk and checked out some architecture in Malaga. Pictured above is a small courtyard that you get let out to as you exit the ~Picasso museum. It's a very calm place and if you ever come and visit me in Malaga I'll take you for a look!

Back on curfew here in Spain

Restrictions in Malaga

After loosening restrictions for Christmas and 3 Kings celebrations here in Malaga, the authorities have now put restrictions back in place that will see us on a 10pm curfew with restaurants and bars closing at 6pm. 

We haven't been out in ages preferring to eat on our balcony with just the two of us. However, this weekend we did eat out in two restaurants - El Meson de Cervantes and Casa Lola.

El Meson de Cervantes

We had eaten in El Meson de Cervantes back in February before there was any major talk of Covid and restrictions when we first visited Malaga in order to find and rent an apartment for the year. We both really enjoyed our first visit to this restaurant, it had a great ambiance and the food was excellent. We probably over ordered on our first visit because we were unused to eating tapas style but on this visit we knew to order a few small or medium tapas and then add more if we needed.

One of the really interesting dishes we had was this black pudding one with sweet potato - really good!

But this was my favourite - battered prawns with treacle. Oh dear lord, so so good!!

Casa Lola

Then the night after we visited our favourite Casa Lola where we had our usual order of Russian Salad along with a few other tapas including Prawns Pil-Pil which were amazing!

And now we are in a restricted situation so it's nice to have the memories of these evenings out.......and of course as the vaccination is rolled out across the population restaurants will open up again in the evening and we will get back out for nice meals. It's something to look forward to!

Quizzing times!

Let's get Quizzical - online Quizzes with DLR Libraries

 

So here's something fun that I've been getting up to!

Dun Laoghaire Rathdown are currently running online quizzes for both children and adults. On the night after Christmas night, they ran a big bumper one that was Ireland themed. I took part in this one here in Spain, along with friends in Dublin and also a friend in Washington DC! It was great fun with Ciaran helping me out on all of the sports questions and more.

Online Quiz

Then last night there was another quiz which was 80's and 90's movie themes. This was also a lot of fun with a nice easy opening question about the character Baby in the film Dirty Dancing. What was her name? Out of 4 choices, it was of course "Frances" or Frances Houseman to be exact!

Connecting virtually through trivia

For this quiz I played along with friends in Dublin (who are currently on lockdown in D6 and also in Waddelai) and some of us texted each other during the quiz to see how we were all getting on......and there was some good natured slagging too in regards to who was beating who!!
There was about 100 people quizzing and I was happy with a mid table result of ending in 43rd place!

Join in on the next Quiz

There will be future quizzes so if you want to join in the fun, send an email to libraryquiz@dlrcoco.ie and you will be sent the link to join in the fun. 

In all honesty it is a great lock down activity and even if you aren't locked down due to Covid, it is the perfect thing to stay in and stay safe doing on a Saturday night from anywhere in the world!

Zooming in to the New Year!

Malaga Marina 31st Dec 2020

Happy New Year!

I can honestly say that I have never been happier to see the back of a year. 2020 was generally good for me but even still it was a terror of  a year that has caused so much misery the world over. For me, there were challenges but they were mainly able to be over come (i.e. my move to Spain for a year was set back by a few months) but I still felt like I was floundering many times due to everything that living in a pandemic brings. It took me awhile to realize that once you get to the fact that something is going to be bad, you then have to come to the conclusion that in reality it will be way worse than you thought. It will also go on lot longer than you thought. I don't think I was alone in thinking that things would be getting back to normal in Summer of 2020. And boy was I wrong!!

But there is a lot to look forward to. Things will get better and mass vaccination is on the horizon for the world. We will overcome Covid 19.

New Year Celebrations by Zoom

We met virtually with friends on New Years Eve which meant that here in Spain we could celebrate the new year with friends in Ireland. The two couples we met with had planned to have dinner together but that was cancelled due to the heightened Covid situation in Ireland. However, the couple that were due to host, still went ahead with their plans to cook a special dinner and dropped it around to the others. Here in Spain we got to see the lovely food that was made and were told about how it was made. We had eaten our seafood dinner and cheese and charcuterie canapes so we enjoyed hearing about what they were eating and enjoying. There was also bubbles being enjoyed in both countries with Bollinger being drank on Moyne Road with a sparkling cava mixed with OJ to make a mimosa being drank here. All in all great fun and a few hours with great company passed very quickly! We wished each other Happy New Year about 11.30pm Spanish time and then Ciaran and I had our own little celebration when the clock struck 12 here. We went out on to our terrace and took in the sights and sounds of the city celebrating with fireworks going off around us.

It was a very different celebration of the New Year but it was one that kept us all safe and we will remember it forever.

And thankfully it is good to end this bad year knowing that all of my friends and family are safe and well and hopefully will stay this way well in to 2021 until we are all vaccinated.

Happy New Year to you all!

My facebook post just after midnight

Christmas 2020

Christmas 2020 was great!

It was lovely and quiet and consisted of very little bar relaxing, eating, watching movies and a little swim on Christmas Day.

Unfortunately my phone died so I only have photos that I had uploaded to social media - but they give a small sampling of how Christmas was.

Christmas Day Swim in Spain

A few days before Christmas we decided we would go for a Christmas Day swim. In fairness if there are swimmers getting in to the cold waters of the Irish sea at the Forty Foot there should be no excuse for us not to do it in the somewhat warmer waters of Malaga. It's also been something that I always said I would like to do on just about Christmas that I was in Key West for. But for one reason or other I never did it.

So this Christmas day, I packed a flask of coffee and put some Baileys Irish Cream Liquor in a hip flask and went to the sea for a swim along with a large bar of Cadburys Dairy Milk for afterwards, 

Cold Water

I won't lie the water was fairly cold but as we were getting out I said "let's get back in for a minute" and we did go back in, and it was fun, and it made me shout out loud and feel ALIVE!!!

Chilled out Christmas

After our swim we enjoyed a walk on Calle Larios with Bones to enjoy the Christmas lights and then went home to enjoy some cheese, charcuterie (Hello Iberian Ham!) and some Christmas Canapes. I made bacon wrapped dates on the bbq which were divine......and then I melted a little blue cheese over them which made them even better!!! I enjoyed these so very much with a mimosa and Christmas music, just a lovely combo!

We followed all of this food later with a surf and turf dinner - but a few brussels sprouts managed to sneak on to the plate too!

On the day after Christmas on St Stephens Day I was volunteering in the Charity Shop again so I headed off for there first thing while Ciaran went off for a coffee in town and a little walk with the dog. We then got up to very little really bar sitting in the sun and doing a little Spanish lesson on our phone. However later that evening after dinner we had a great time partaking in the DLR Library online quiz. We finished mid table after making a few too many silly mistakes on some questions, I had put the details up on Facebook so one Facebook friend in Washington DC signed up and joined in the fun along with another Facebook friend playing along with her family in Dublin. We all finished up near each other but here in Spain we had fun keeping an eye on where they were in relation to us during the quiz. I also kept an eye on my good friend and work colleague who went on to top the leaderboard out of 93 participants and win the quiz!  Good for him!!!

And now it is a case of looking forward to 2021 and a better new year......which I am unbelievable thankful for as it can't be any worse than 2020!!!